thoughts of a writer

Menu

Category Archives: Newsies

I’ve got a lot of randomness on my mind, so I decided to do a Random Post. Y’all seem to find those interesting, and it works for when I have a bunch of little things to say, so.

Sweet tea is amazing. I mean, seriously. What’s better than cranking out a few thousand words with the assistance of a few glasses of sweet tea and a warm brownie? Sweet tea = writing fuel.

Speaking of writing, I took my brother to a birthday party the other day. The party was centered around the PC game Age of Empires. It was my BFF’s younger brother’s birthday, so I stayed while they played the first game, ate some pizza, and then talked to my BFF up in her room while the second game happened. I’ll be the first to admit that I know nothing about this game, but it was fun to hide out in the basement with the birthday boy’s family’s team – the other team was upstairs, with a total of eight people playing – and write. I keyboard-smashed over two thousand words. It was pretty awesome.

i feel like this dude should have a more substantial role in the plot. considering i’ve cast dylan o’brian to play him… 😉

Which brings me to my second-and-a-half point, which is this: Is it wrong to introduce a character in the last two chapters of a novel? The novel in question is The Art of Letting Go, if it makes any difference. He just popt in and I have no idea what his future-relating-to-my-novel is, but I know I need him. It feels a little weird to wait ’til the last few chapters to introduce a new character, but I don’t know if he’ll have any part in the rest of the novel. SO. I do have a feeling that he’s going to be pretty amazing. So far, he’s just been referenced, but I have a few scenes planned for the possibly-last-chapter (sobbbbbb).

Another interesting thing that’s happened since my last post happened Rather Uniquely and is Equally Rather Exciting. (No, I’m not in a relationship, although Dad caused half the church to think I or my sister was because of something he said on Sunday. *facepalm*) The interesting thing is…

I’M GOING TO SEE NEWSIES!!!

I still can’t believe it. Honestly, I can’t. I’ve been wanting to see it for so. long. It was so cool how it all happened, too! See, I posted something about Newsies two posts ago and a friend texted me that she was going to see it. So, naturally, I replied with an all-caps request to TAKE ME WITH HERRRR!!! And she said I could come and then it turned out that she was going with a group and that, miraculously, they had an extra ticket for suuuper cheap, and then my younger sister got a ticket and another friend also decided to come after they found out they had another extra ticket, so I’M SO EXCITED IT’S GONNA BE AMAZING I’M SO HAPPY I CAN SEE IT BECAUSE THIS IS FIXES MY ONE REGRET FROM MY GRADUATION PRESENT TRIP TO NYC AND EVEN THOUGH IT’S NOT BROADWAY IT’S ALMOST AS GOOD BECAUSE I’M GOING WITH MY PEEPS AND I’M SO HAPPYYYYYYYYYY. *melts into a puddle of rainbows*

Anywho, I’d like to show you guys a recent picture of my adorbs baby sister, JellyBean.

(Obligatory disclaimer about the baby’s name not really being JellyBean.)

ISN’T SHE ADORBS?! Even though she’s a messmaker, I mean. Right now, we’re sitting on the couch and watching You’ve Got Mail while I blog. Because she’s too little to be offended by the offensive content in that movie. (Second obligatory disclaimer about the offensive content and the suggestion of watching this otherwise AWESOME movie with ClearPlay.)

She’s starting to talk now. SO. CUTE. She calls me “Ash,” which is closer than any other 20-month-old I’ve known (most call me some variant “Addy”). She’s also just learned how to say thank you – “Dahk oooooooh” – and says it as often as she can. She says “pretty” (“pippy”) and loves to wake me up by whispering from across the room, “Hiiiiiiii.” It’s vaguely creepy, but I’ve gotten used to it.

In other news, I’m almost a Junior. In college. Wut. When did that even happen. Halfway through my higher educational experience and I didn’t even see it whiz by.

“As far as I’m concerned, the Internet is just another place to be rejected by women.” Oh, George. The Bean and I have found ourselves home alone for a few hours, and we were going to watch something BAD because we can. So I put in the Barbie Princess and the Pauper. Because I can and because the music is fantastic, even though the animation is icky. But then the ClearPlay blocked it because it’s mean. So now we’re watching You’ve Got Mail.

OH OH OH. We interrupt your usual programing to fangirl over the fact thAT CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR IS GOING TO BE FILMED IN MY STATE. CLOSE(ish) TO ME. BLAHHHHH.

I’ve also discovered a new musical – Matilda! I, like most musical-lovers, watched the Tony Awards performance, but didn’t really know what the story was until I listened to the music. Then I read the synopsis, listened to the musical again, watched a bootleg on YouTube, and got the book from the library. Basically, I love it. The music was done by a rock star, so it’s really unique! My favorite songs are ‘Naughty, ‘Silence,’ and ‘The School Song.’ Oh, and all of the different parts of Matilda’s story. Have any of you seen it?

I’ve been reading a lot of good books lately, which is just fantastic, considering the three books I finished 2014 with were pretty terrible. There was The Best of Me – the only one I actually finished – was okay, but I didn’t like any of the characters and actually *blushes* cheered when one of the main characters died. Meh.

Then there was The DUFF,the one I got because I saw the trailer for the film adaption and thought I’d give it a try. Baaaaad mistake. If I tried to play an M&M game where I ate an M&M every time I saw a taboo four-letter-word – think drinking game for homeschoolers – I’d be sugar high before the second chapter. And then the material got more offensive. *facepalm* Flipped through the rest and returned the book. I see enough moral depravity as it is, thankyouverymuch.

And theeeennnnnn there was Afterworlds, the one I wanted to enjoy. : ((((( The premise was AWESOME. The main character gets a publishing contract for her NaNo novel before finishing it – half the story is her novel, the other half is told from the main character’s perspective as she adjusts to life in NYC and finishes her novel. But the carry-through. Ick. The story was a paranormal romance, and the main character was homosexual. : ( Needless to say, I returned that one unfinished, too.

Returning a book to my library (thank God they were library books!!!) without finishing it is really uncharacteristic of me. Usually, I’ll finish a book no matter how terrible it is (which is, tragically, probably half of the reason I’m still watching The March Family Letters, even though I don’t like it), but those two… ugh.

And then, last night, I finished Code Name Verity, thus breaking the bad streak. Smashing it to pieces is more like it. The title of this post is from Code Name Verity, actually. I stayed up ’til midnight crying over it – two nights in a row. I didn’t think I’d like it at first because it took me almost a week to get through the first fifty pages. And then I tumbled through the rest and loved it. It’s got some language and a few intense references to interrogation methods (comment for specifics), but I absolutely loved it. The themes of friendship and resilience really impacted me. And I now have a fictional character crush on Jamie, who was brilliant and hilarious and amazing. (“MA CHERIE!”) Scottish accents are my one weakness.

I know I’ve been posting a lot of YouTube videos lately, a lot of songs lately, and, yes, I also know that I’ve already posted this song already. (Here, a group of newsies come up from behind me, push you, and all say in perfect unison, “Who asked you?!”)

This song has honestly been my prayer recently. Yesterday was such a rough day for me, for multiple reasons I won’t bore you all with, and tonight I’ve just decided to face facts and leave it all up to God.

Oh, yeah – I almost forgot. There’s something exciting coming up!!! I can’t give any more information, but you all won’t want to miss it!!